GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. (AFTERWARDS LORD) LYTTELTON TO THE

REV. WILLIAM WARBURTON.

[GEORGE LYTTELTON was the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in the county of Worcester. He was born in 1709, and educated first at Eton, and afterwards at Christ Church. In 1728 he travelled in France and Italy; and in 1735 was M. P. for Oakhampton, in which capacity he opposed the Court and Sir R. Walpole. In 1737 he became Secretary to the Prince of Wales, and in 1744 was appointed a Lord of the Treasury. He was made Cofferer and Privy Councillor in 1754; Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1755; was elevated to the Peerage in 1757; and died in 1773, aged 64.

He was an early and somewhat voluminous writer. His principal work is his "Life of Henry II." matured by the researches and deliberations of twenty years, and published at intervals between 1755 and 1772. Besides this, he wrote, amongst other things, "Persian Letters," a satire on the moral and political state of England, 1735. "Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul," 1747; "to which," Dr. Johnson says, “Infidelity has never been able to fabricate a plausible answer." "Dialogues of the Dead," 1760.

Though not possessed of the requisite qualifications for the arduous office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, he possessed considerable abilities, not only as a statesman and as an historian, but also as a writer of taste and imagination. In early life he had doubted of Christianity, but candid inquiry, under higher influ

ences,

had convinced him of its truth. The best testimony to his moral and religious worth is the title by which he is best known, "the GOOD Lord Lyttelton."-Nichols's Literary Anecdotes ; and EDIT.]

London, June 10, 1740.

SIR,

I am extremely obliged to you for the favour of your Letter, as I shall always be happy in any mark you give me of your affection, which I shall endeavour to deserve by all means in my power.

The book you was so kind to send me I have read with great pleasure, as I do every thing you write, not only from the learning and wit that always appear in it, but from the honest use you make of those qualities. But as you write to flatter no party, or sect, you must expect to displease all violent men, for the same reason as the candid approve of you. And believe me, sir, whoever writes upon such subjects, if he writes to please universally, cannot write well. Yet truth will at last get the better of prejudice, and posterity will do you justice, if the present age should refuse it you.

I came to day from your friend Mr. Pope. He is very well, and very busy in making his grotto, which, you know, is a curious collection of ores, minerals, marbles, and all the wealth of the subterraneous world. You cannot imagine how eager he is at it.

I am going for a month or six weeks into Worcestershire and Somersetshire. A letter directed to my house in Pall Mall will be carefully sent to me, and always received with great satisfaction by,

I thank you for the account of the MSS. in the University Library; there is one among them I should be very desirous to see, viz. Revocatio Articulorum quos Henr. 2dus. voluit Ecclesiam Ang. observásse. 177. As I suppose it cannot be very long, I will beg the favour of you to get it transcribed for me, when any other business carries you to Cambridge, but not before, for I am in no sort of haste for it. If you make any stay there, I would also venture to give you the trouble of looking into such of the MSS. as were written near the time of Henry the Second (for as to later writers I pay little regard to their authority), and of noting down what they say with regard to one principal point, upon which I find a difference in the

books I have consulted; viz. the conditions upon which Henry was reconciled to Becket, and whether upon that reconciliation he (Henry) gave up any of the points in dispute with the Church. It seems to me that he did not. Becket's Letters, printed at Rome, and since at Bruxelles, I must get the perusal of, and imagine I shall meet with them in some of the Libraries here. Quære, are the Epistolæ Tho. Cant. inedita, among Sir Sim. D'Ewes' MSS. different from those of the Vatican? If they are, I should be glad to see them too. I had once formed a project of giving you the meeting at Cambridge, that we might look over these things together, but I could not find time for it. In truth I have not leisure enough for the work I have undertaken, and I do not know when I am like to have more; but though I cannot make it my business, I shall amuse myself with it now and then, and get through it by little and little, if I can keep my mind from being disgusted with the dulness and dryness of the materials from which I am forced to compose it. Were I writing any portion of ancient history, the books I must read for that purpose would be an agreeable and useful study; but I am now fouling my mind with the dust and cobwebs of Monkish ignorance, superstition, and barbarism. I often envy Dr. Middleton the fine subject he had to write upon, the Age of Cicero, that age which, above all others, before or since, furnishes the noblest materials for history.

Had he not taken it from me I had resolved to have made it the amusement of my old age, if I live to be old: it should have been the "Pabulum senectutis atque otii;" but I would not have confined it to the actions of Cicero; I would have written the History of Rome from the death of the younger Scipio, the last great Roman chief who was not dangerous to the liberties of his country, and carried it down to the battle of Actium, which finally changed the commonwealth into a monarchy. Of this period, so much of Livy being unhappily lost, we have no one entire good history, and yet I think there are scattered materials enough to enable one to compose it, not indeed as Livy did (even supposing a genius equal to his, which I believe is not to be found), but in such a manner as to make it a fine and useful work.

Having mentioned Middleton, I cannot help telling you that I have lately read his new edition of his "Letter from Rome," and think it is impossible to read it without being convinced that the Christian city has borrowed many of its superstitions from the Pagan: though some may arise, not from any imitation or adoption of the old rites, but from the common genius of superstition. I think, too, that the Doctor has considered and answered your objection, with a great deal of candour and good breeding, though it struck at the whole credit and use of his book, whereas his argument no way affects yours. Let me therefore beg you, dear sir, not to reply to him with any acrimony, or